If you've got company, it's always a nice touch to break through the salt crust tableside. It's like doing a magic trick. But return the fish to the kitchen to fillet it, since this is a messy process. • Using two spatulas, gently lift the fish out of its salt bed and onto a clean work surface (it will be tender and want to fall apart easily). Scrape off any salt clinging to the fish with the blade of your slicing knife. It's important to be as thorough as possible with this.

April 21, 2014 | By Michael Muskal, This post has been updated. See details below.

The defendant in a long-running gang case in Salt Lake City was shot by U.S. marshals when he attempted to attack a witness testifying at his trial, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said on Monday. Melodie Rydalch, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, told the Los Angeles Times that the shooting was related to the trial of Siale Angilau, an alleged member of the Tongan Crips. She described the case as “a long-running RICO” case involving the group. [Updated April 21, 1:58 p.m. PDT: The Associated Press, quoting the FBI, said that Angilau died Monday at a hospital.

Re "The War on Salt Goes Corporate," May 17, you missed the saltiest of all: fried chicken. Also, we always laugh when the Food Network chef says "a little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper" — every few minutes! John Albritton Laguna Beach • That article on salt may be the best one written for The Times all year. I'm also dismayed by the "serving size" on packaged foods, which is always smaller than an average person's serving, further misleading the consumer as to how much sodium they are actually getting.

A minor mystery surrounds my grandmother's collection of salt cellars. No one in the family seems to know when she started collecting them, or exactly how many she had. "After somebody goes, you think of all these questions that you wished you had asked them," my Aunt Ellen told me over the phone the other day. My grandmother's name was Beulah Schrag, but everyone called her Boo. She died at home in Natick, Mass., just over two years ago. At 91, she had spent 30 years without her right leg, which was amputated due to cancer the year I was born.

Bulgarian archaeologists have found what they believe to be the oldest town in Europe, a salt production center called Solnitsata near the modern-day city of Provadia. Although the 6-millenium-old town held only 350 people or so, it was apparently very wealthy because it supplied salt to much of what is now the Balkans. The town was functional more than 1,000 years before the beginning of Greek civilization. Remains of Solnitsata have been carbon-dated to 4,700 to 4,200 B.C., but salt production at the site began as early as 5400 B.C., according to archaeologist Vasil Nikolov of Bulgaria's National Institute of Archaeology.

Want to satisfy your full day's requirement of salt, fat and calories? Sit down in a restaurant and order a meal. After an exhaustive analysis of 3,507 possible ways to order 685 meals at 19 restaurants chains in Canada, researchers found that the average meal contained 151% of the recommended daily value of sodium. That means a single breakfast, lunch or dinner had enough sodium to get you through an entire day and a half. Overall, more than 80% of the meals studied contained at least a full day's supply of sodium, according to a report published online Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Rueful, funny and wise, "The Salt of Life" is a comedy not of errors but of the tiniest of missteps. A warm yet melancholy film of quiet yet inescapable charm, it has a feeling for character and personality that couldn't be more delicious. That a film as delicate, personal and small-scaled as "Salt of Life," directed and co-written by Italy's Gianni Di Gregorio, exists at all is a function of fate and chance. Di Gregorio, who also stars, acted as a young man before beginning what became an accomplished screenwriting career.

A Chicken McNugget in England is not the same as a Chicken McNugget in America -- not in terms of salt content, anyway. A study out this week in the Canadian Medical Assn. Journal shows that the salt levels in certain fast food varied widely from country to country -- even if the foods being compared were the exact same menu items from the same restaurant chain. Take the aforementioned McNuggets, courtesy of McDonalds. The nuggets contained 0.6 grams of salt per 100 grams of foodstuff in Britain, but more than double that -- 1.6 grams of salt -- in the United States.

A 15% reduction in salt consumption was likely “an important contributor” to a 40% reduction in stroke and heart disease deaths in the last decade in England, researchers said Monday. The “single largest” contribution to the decline in deaths was a decrease in blood pressure, they said. Smoking and blood cholesterol also declined over the period, 2003-11; produce consumption and body mass index rose. At the same time, there were improvements in treatment for high blood pressure and heart disease, they said in the online British Medical Journal Open.

When: 1 p.m. PDT. Where: Rio Tinto Stadium, Sandy, Utah. On the air: TV: NBC Sports Network; Radio: 1330. Records: Galaxy 0-1-0; Real Salt Lake 1-0-1. Record vs. Real Salt Lake: 0-1-0. Update: The Galaxy was eliminated from the CONCACAF Champions League by Mexican side Club Tijuana on Tuesday by an aggregate score of 4-2 and has not played a Major League Soccer game since its 1-0 loss to Real Salt Lake in the season opener March 8 in Carson.

Real Salt Lake goalkeeper Nick Rimando spoiled the night for a sold-out crowd of 25,364 at StubHub Center on Saturday night, blocking a Robbie Keane penalty kick in the 92nd minute to maintain a 1-0 lead that handed the Galaxy a loss in its season opener. Although Real Salt Lake walked off with the 1-0 victory, the conversation of the game will center on questionable calls made by replacement referees who were calling the game after the league's officiating union could not settle a labor dispute before the start of the season.

The Galaxy added some much-needed depth to its strike force this off-season the signing of two foreign players, veteran Canadian Rob Friend and young Brazilian Samuel. But the team, which opened their 2014 MLS regular season against Real Salt Lake on Saturday night, might get a boost on offense from a more local source: Gyasi Zardes. Zardes was one of the most highly touted prospects in Galaxy history when he was signed in December 2012. In the last two years of his college career at Cal State Bakersfield, Zardes scored 33 goals in 37 games, making him one of the most sought-after college strikers heading into the 2013 MLS draft.

The Galaxy opens its season Saturday night facing the rival that knocked them out of the playoffs last year: Real Salt Lake. But the Galaxy will field a markedly different team at the StubHub Center after bolstering its ranks with several experienced players during the off-season. The moves were to correct the team's uneven play in 2013. "If there was a weakness last year, it's that we were inconsistent," said Coach Bruce Arena, who last month signed a multiyear contract extension.

In the middle of a brutal winter, states throughout the country are grappling with a new crisis, a shortage of rock salt to melt ice on roadways. Here's a look at what's being done to combat limited supplies. What's the big deal about salt? Although many Southern California residents are oblivious to winter this year, most of the country is in the grips of another bad storm. When 2 inches of snow is piling on roads every hour, like on Wednesday in the Northeast, highways need help.

Are you sensitive to salt? It will take a doctor to tell you for sure, but you can get a pretty good idea on your own, experts say. The most specific test requires an experienced specialist, says Dr. Myron Weinberger of the Indiana University School of Medicine. One technique involves bringing the patient to a research center, giving him or her an intravenous load of salt solution for four hours, then measuring blood pressure.

SEDALIA, Mo. - The dirty rocks of salt are packed into a storage shed on a snowy lot, where a nearby bulldozer, its engine on, stands at the ready. Pettis County Commissioner Brent Hampy trudges across the frozen ground to assess the stockpiles for this county, which just received 8 inches of snow in a nasty storm that closed schools for two days. There are about 200 tons of salt left piled here, and it may not be enough. The county started out the winter with 600 tons, and last winter used only 50. "If we don't have more ice storms we'll be fine," Hampy said, as the wind whipped his cheeks in the 11-degree chill.